Beyond Argument: Essaying as a Practice of (Ex)Change

158 Pages·2015·0.99 MB·English

by  Sarah Allen

BEYOND ARGUMENT A
l
l
e
n
Beyond Argument offers an in-depth examination of how current ways
of thinking about the writer-page relation in personal essays can be re-
conceived according to practices in the “care of the self” — an ethic by
which writers such as Seneca, Montaigne, and Nietzsche lived. This ap- BEYOND ARGUMENT
proach promises to revitalize the form and address many of the concerns
expressed by essay scholars and writers regarding the lack of rigorous ex-
ploration we see in our students’ personal essays — and sometimes, even,
in our own. In pursuing this approach, Sarah Allen presents a version of
ESSAYING AS A PRACTICE
subjectivity that enables productive debate in the essay, among essays,
and beyond. OF (EX)CHANGE
B
E
Sarah Allen is Associate Professor in the English Department at the Univer-
Y
sity of Northern Colorado in Greeley, CO, where she serves as a Rhetoric and
O
Composition scholar and teacher. Her work has been published in Rhetoric
N
Review and in Educational Philosophy and Theory; she also has book chapters
D
in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing (Parlor Press) and in Research Writing

A
Revisited: A Sourcebook for Teachers (Heinemann). Her scholarship generally
R
explores the ethics of the personal essay, and this work informs her teaching,
G
as she works to discover the most useful and effective ways of assisting stu-
U
dents in engaging with difficult, dense material and in generating complex,
M
rigorous writings of their own.
E
N
T
Perspectives on Writing
Series Editor, Susan H. McLeod
The WAC Clearinghouse
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1052 W
http://wac.colostate.edu
SARAH ALLEN
3015 Brackenberry Drive
W
Anderson, SC 29621
www.parlorpress.com
S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9
ISBN 978-1-60235-647-4
PERSPECTIVES ON WRITING
Series Editor, Susan H. McLeod
PERSPECTIVES ON WRITING
Series Editor, Susan H. McLeod
The Perspectives on Writing series addresses writing studies in a broad sense.
Consistent with the wide ranging approaches characteristic of teaching and
scholarship in writing across the curriculum, the series presents works that take
divergent perspectives on working as a writer, teaching writing, administering
writing programs, and studying writing in its various forms.
The WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press are collaborating so that these books
will be widely available through free digital distribution and low-cost print edi-
tions. The publishers and the Series editor are teachers and researchers of writing,
committed to the principle that knowledge should freely circulate. We see the
opportunities that new technologies have for further democratizing knowledge.
And we see that to share the power of writing is to share the means for all to
articulate their needs, interest, and learning into the great experiment of literacy.
Recent Books in the Series
Steven J. Corbett, Beyond Dichotomy: Synergizing Writing Center and Classroom
Pedagogies (2015)
Christy I. Wenger, Yoga Minds, Writing Bodies: Contemplative Writing Pedagogy
(2015)
Tara Roeder and Roseanne Gatto (Eds.), Critical Expressivism: Theory and Prac-
tice in the Composition Classroom (2014)
Terry Myers Zawacki and Michelle Cox (Eds), WAC and Second-Language Writ-
ers: Research Towards Linguistically and Culturally Inclusive Programs and
Practices, (2014)
Charles Bazerman, A Rhetoric of Literate Action: Literate Action Volume 1 (2013)
Charles Bazerman, A Theory of Literate Action: Literate Action Volume 2 (2013)
Katherine V. Wills and Rich Rice (Eds.), ePortfolio Performance Support Systems:
Constructing, Presenting, and Assessing Portfolios (2013)
Mike Duncan and Star Medzerian Vanguri (Eds.), The Centrality of Style (2013)
Chris Thaiss, Gerd Bräuer, Paula Carlino, Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, and Aparna
Sinha (Eds.), Writing Programs Worldwide: Profiles of Academic Writing in
Many Places (2012)
Andy Kirkpatrick and Zhichang Xu, Chinese Rhetoric and Writing: An Introduc-
tion for Language Teachers (2012)
BEYOND ARGUMENT:
ESSAYING AS A PRACTICE OF
(EX)CHANGE
Sarah Allen
The WAC Clearinghouse
wac.colostate.edu
Fort Collins, Colorado
Parlor Press
www.parlorpress.com
Anderson, South Carolina
The WAC Clearinghouse, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1052
Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina 29621
© 2015 by Sarah Allen. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu-
tion-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Allen, Sarah, 1975-
Beyond argument : essaying as a practice of (ex)change / Sarah Allen.
1 online resource. -- (Perspectives on writing)
Includes bibliographical references.
Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher;
resource not viewed.
ISBN 978-1-60235-647-4 (pdf) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-648-1 (epub) -- ISBN
978-1-60235-649-8 ( mobi) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-646-7 (pbk. : acid-free paper)
1. Persuasion (Rhetoric) 2. Essay--Authorship. 3. Self in literature. 4. Persona
(Literature) I. Title.
P301.5.P47
808.4--dc23
2015007044
Copyeditor: Sarah Brooks
Designer: Mike Palmquist
Series Editor: Susan H. McLeod
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
The WAC Clearinghouse supports teachers of writing across the disciplines. Hosted
by Colorado State University, it brings together scholarly journals and book series as
well as resources for teachers who use writing in their courses. This book is available
in digital format for free download at http://wac.colostate.edu.
Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print
and multimedia formats. This book is available in print and eBook formats from
Parlor Press at http://www.parlorpress.com. For submission information or to find
out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive,
Anderson, South Carolina 29621, or email [email protected].
I dedicate this work to my students.

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 1: Meeting the Real Self in the Essay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Chapter 2: Meeting the Constructed Self in the Essay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Chapter 3: Cultivating a Self in the Essay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Chapter 4: Imitation as Meditation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Chapter 5: Self Writing in the Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Works Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I was fortunate enough to have studied with Paul Heilker at Virginia Tech
and, then, with Christy Friend, John Muckelbauer, and Pat Gehrke at the Uni-
versity of South Carolina. I am intensely grateful to all of them for their per-
sistent influence on my work. This manuscript, in many ways, is shaped by (and,
thus, is only possible because of) their influences. Christy Friend, in particular,
continues to serve as a guide and an inspiration for my work not only as a schol-
ar, but also as an administrator and teacher.
I would also like to thank my ever patient and thoughtful colleagues at the
University of Northern Colorado, who read early drafts of the manuscript and
helped me to revise it with a more diverse audience in mind. Those colleagues
include Tracey Sedinger, Molly Desjardins, April Miller, Joseph Chaves, and
Kristin Bovaird-Abbo.
Finally, I’d like to thank Mom, Liz, and Jason for their patience, support,
and grounded perspectives throughout the process of drafting and revising this
manuscript. Without them, I’m not sure that I could have sustained the work
beyond the first chapter.
An earlier version of Chapter 3 was published in Rhetoric Review in 2010
(volume 29, issue 4, pages 364-78), under the title “The Cultivated Self: Self
Writing, Subjectivity, and Debate.” I wish to thank the publisher, Taylor and
Francis, for permission to reproduce this material. I am indebted to the review-
ers and editors at WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press for their invaluable feed-
back on the manuscript and for their support of this project. I am particularly
grateful to Peter Elbow, who served as one of the reviewers, for his generous
responses and helpful suggestions at various stages of the project’s development.
ix